


You Make Me Worry So Much...

by Cojiko



Category: Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z
Genre: Amputation, Android 18 is a little pissed, Chestnut Week, F/M, Hospitals, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Injury, Major Character Injury, Noncanonical event, None of you can stop me, One Shot, POV First Person, Serious, Serious Injuries, Surgery, Sweet Ending, Takes place somewhere in Super, That's putting it lightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 20:31:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20513069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cojiko/pseuds/Cojiko
Summary: For Chestnut Island's annual Chestnut Week, which...isn't for another nine days, I know. But I can't wait that long! I gotta get this out now!Hope it's to your liking, because I'm always afraid of writing somebody OOC without realizing it.





	You Make Me Worry So Much...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zonnebloem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zonnebloem/gifts).
  * Inspired by [You Never Know](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/516386) by EdwardWongHauPepiluTivriskyIV. 

> So...If anyone did notice before (I'm guessing about...maybe three people tops?), I posted a story about amputation a little while ago. I deleted that because I just wasn't content with what I had written in it. The story just felt off for some reason and it bugged the hell out of me. That's why I deleted it.
> 
> So I decided to take the topic of that deleted story and try my hand at it again, only with a different pairing. I've always adored the relationship between Krillin and Android 18 and I figured the idea of the deleted story would work much better with them instead of with Goku. And that's precisely what I did.
> 
> I hope I made 18 act about how she would in-universe. It's been a little while since I've sat down to watch an episode of Super or Z, so I hope I did well with this.

A clean white tile floor.

Pristine walls with beige accents.

The monotonous sound of ticking amidst hurried footsteps and hushed commands.

The unavoidable smell of anesthesia.

I’m sitting on an old, cushioned bench in a bright, white hallway. Just a few feet to my left are the operating room doors. I see doctors, nurses, and other personnel walking through the other hall to my right, going about their own business. Despite the light pitter-patter of shoes and the ticking, everything else is eerily quiet…

I…I can hardly remember what I was doing before I got here. I think I had been talking to Videl at her home just a few hours ago. I’d brought Marron with me since my husband was still out on the job. For the past few weeks, there’ve been these strings of robberies happening all over Satan City. That means Krillin has been getting swamped with his police work and I’ve been swamped with looking after our little girl. Sometimes I wish those assholes could just find a normal job like everyone else, then Krillin could finally come home at a reasonable time. I miss having some alone time with him.

I think it was around six-thirty when my cellphone rang. Marron was playing with little Pan while Videl and I were chatting. I can’t recall what the topic was…Everything just became a blur as soon as I picked up the phone. I remember telling Videl to watch Marron before I jumped in the car and made my way here, to the Satan City Hospital. I probably wasn’t being the safest driver in the world, but the only thing I could even focus on at that moment was what the caller had told me.

Krillin was just put into the intensive care unit and about to undergo emergency surgery, so the hospital needed me over there ASAP. They didn’t say how badly he was injured or why he needed the surgery, so let’s just say it wasn’t a fun wait in the lobby. While I was waiting for a staff member to tell me just what the hell was going on, one of Krillin’s officer friends recognized me and came up to me. I didn’t know his name, but he was able to tell me why my husband got rushed over here.

Unsurprisingly, there was yet another robbery today, so Krillin’s squad was sent to take care of it. One of those robbers had the f̶̢̖͙̻́̈̓͘ṵ̵͍̠͚͆̿͂̅ć̵̥͍͍̪͐͐͌k̵̗͉̣̣̑̉͌̀i̴̙̟̻̬͂̀̕n̵̦͍͔̺̉͊͆̍g̶̗͖̫̓͒͒͜͠ nerve to not just bring a gun with him, but a _goddamn machete_. Who brings a **F̶̗͇̝̖̫͖̔̇̽͗̽̕U̸̢̢͚̠͕̭̒͛͒̔̓̕C̵̢̢͉͖̥̙͛̈̅͑̄̔K̸̛̰̰͉͇͉͆̈́͑̅͘͜Į̵̟̬̞̭̝̈̒̓͌̔͝Ņ̶̝͕̤̠͖͋̃͗̏͑G̴̻̳̣̭̭̺̍̽̎͒͊̕ **_**machete**_ to a bank robbery!? A jackass, that’s who! So while my husband was disarming the other robbers, this Yayhoo decides to catch him off guard and…and…!

Gah! It pisses me off just thinking about it! Long story short, somebody sliced my husband up badly and that’s why he’s in the operating room. So yeah, I’m scared, I’m pissed, and I’m more anxious than I’ve ever been in my whole life. If the situation wasn’t this awful, I’d probably laugh at my reaction. I’m not usually the kind of person to show a lot of emotion…that’s more on Krillin’s part than mine. And yet now, my head is spinning with fear, anger, and everything in between. I think I may have ripped the bench cushion a little…I can see a bit of yellow foam underneath my fingertips.

The wall clock across from me reads 10:48. I wish it was a digital one instead of analog. The ticking only makes my spinning thoughts worse…

Sigh…It feels like I’ve been waiting out in this damn hallway for forever. When a doctor finally came to talk to me, he said that the surgery shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours and that I’d be able to see my husband soon. That was about four hours ago now and nobody has updated me on what was happening in there. It shouldn’t take four hours to stitch up machete slashes. Hell, it probably shouldn’t take _two_ hours to do it! If Krillin would only bring a Senzu bean with him on the job, then neither of us would have to deal with this bullshit and he wouldn’t have to make me worry like this…

“Um, excuse me?” A quiet voice called out from my left. I turned my head and see this short, little woman with curly brown hair peeking from behind the door. She looks young…maybe she’s a nurse in training? She must be a nurse of some kind if she’s allowed to be in that room, though she seems a bit pale in the face. This becomes more evident when she walks out to face me. The poor girl looks like she’s seen a ghost…I can’t imagine what it must be like to witness a surgery.

“Mrs…uh, Eighteen? That’s your name, right?” She meekly asks.

“Yeah, that’s my name. Got a problem with it?” I must’ve lost control of my tone there. The nurse jumped at my snap and quickly shook her head.

“N-No, no, not at all! It’s a…a lovely name! Nothing’s wrong with it, hehe…” Her stammering was only making this more annoying than it needed to be.

“Cut the chit-chat. What do you want?”

“Oh, um…I just came to tell you that the surgery is done now.”

I bolted out of the bench as soon as she finished her sentence. If my snap hadn’t startled her, then this jump certainly did. I think I even heard a little _eep_ come out of her. But I wasn’t thinking about _her_ feelings at the moment, I had bigger things on my mind than whether or not if I’d scared some girl!

“Why the hell did this damn thing take so long?! Your superior or whoever said this would take only two hours tops and that was four hours ago! What the hell happened in there!?”

“P-Please calm down ma’am! I can explain the long wait, so please don’t yell at me!”

“…Tch! There better be a good reason why you kept me waiting so long,” I growled under my breath.

“Well, see, two hours was the estimated time the doctors thought it’d take to get your husband’s operation done and over with. B-But once we’d gotten him on the table, we saw that the injuries he sustained were much worse than what our report told us. We thought that we were only cleaning and stitching up major lacerations at the chest and abdomen, but…”

I don’t like the sound of that _but_.

“But what? What happened to my husband?”

I could see more color drain from the nurse’s face as she gulped. “Y-Your husband…his left arm had to be removed.”

…

What the fuck?

What the _actual_ _fuck_? I must’ve crashed and passed out on the way to the hospital because that’s something I’d only hear in my nightmares. There’s no way that’s true… I mean, that couldn’t possibly happen to Krillin. He’s stronger than that, I know he is! This has to be a lie…right?

“His shoulder joint was almost completely sliced off by that machete…T-The doctors tried their best, but we…w-we couldn’t save it. I’m…I’m sorry…”

It took me several seconds to find words to say. Or maybe it took several minutes? Time just felt like it was slowing down around me…

“…Can…Can I see him? Can I see my husband…?” My throat feels painfully dry as I speak. I can barely keep my voice above a whisper. The nurse slowly nodded.

“Yes, you may. He’s still asleep from the anesthesia, though. He’ll probably wake up in about an hour or so…i-if you want to wait for him.”

I don’t answer back, instead pushing the poor girl aside as I head into the operating room. There were so many little cubicles (you know, the beds surrounded by the curtains?) that at first, I couldn’t tell where to go. I probably would’ve been pulling back all the curtains if I didn’t see this lone doctor standing at a far-back cubicle. He turned and motioned for me to come over, which I did faster than you probably should in an ICU.

“You must be Mr. Krillin’s wife, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I affirmed. No other words were spoken as he led me over to the cubicle he stood by. I could see the silhouette of a bed behind the light-blue fabric, with something lumpy on top of the bed. I can only assume the sign-looking shadow to the right was a heart monitor since you could hear light beeping coming from there.

The doctor put his hand onto one end of the curtain but then paused to look at me. He wore a deathly serious expression.

“Have you mentally prepared yourself for this, ma’am?”

I slowly nod. The suspense is killing me, but standing over here wasn’t going to make it any better. The doctor let out a deep sigh.

“Alright. Before I draw this back, I just want to say that I’m sorry for what’s happened to your husband. No one…No one should ever have to go through all that’s happened to him…I-”

“Stop. Talking. Just let me see him, please,” It took a lot of effort to keep myself coherent. My throat grew dryer and dryer for every second that damn curtain wasn’t being moved. I’m sure the doctor could tell I was getting emotional because he just stopped talking and finally began moving the fabric over.

For a few moments, my brain refused to register anything around me. I think the shock clammed me up…made me bluescreen for a bit, you know? It…It hurts to joke right now, but what else can I do? How do you deal with witnessing something so…_unreal_? I don’t think anyone ever thinks about something like this until it’s too late.

There my husband was, laying on top of a hospital bed with a thin blanket loosely covering him. It only covered up to his stomach, so that meant his whole upper half was open for my brain to imprint upon itself, to latch onto for years on end. He was covered in so many bandages, absolutely layered from chest to face with sterile white. For some reason, that horrified me more than if he wasn’t wearing them. Just knowing how bad his injuries must’ve been to warrant this made me wish this was all just a bad dream. But I should know better than that…I should know that this is my reality.

After all, if this was a dream then I wouldn’t be smelling the lingering stench of blood in the air. I’d be breathing in the smell of my husband as we laid in bed. My wonderful, perfectly healthy spouse would be sleeping in my arms as my nose nestled that soft black hair of his, making me smile brighter than any other time of the day. He wouldn’t be here…Krillin wouldn’t be drugged up on anesthetic and passed out. He wouldn’t look so _fragile_ and _broken_, as though even the lightest touch would destroy him…

And as my eyes hovered over to his left, I saw what the nurse had told me earlier. Krillin’s arm was just gone at where the shoulder joint should be. There wasn’t even a stump left, as if a muscly, well-toned arm never existed, to begin with. The only physical indication that it was removed was the thick layer of bandages wrapped around his left shoulder and the scar that’d likely form later on.

What got to me the most, however, was his face. He may be asleep right now, but Krillin’s face made him look as though he hadn’t slept for several days. I could see dark circles under his closed eyes and hints of purple around his mouth and chin. Bruises from when he was arresting the robbers? I don’t know…This whole sight just breaks my heart more than I’d thought was possible.

The doctor behind me clears his throat.

“We’ll be moving him to another room in about an hour or so. If you’d like, you may stay here with him until then,” He speaks matter-of-factly.

“I will, thank you.”

With that, the man walks away and now…I’m alone with him. I didn’t notice it earlier, but there’s also an old swivel chair to the right of the hospital bed. It’s just out of the heart monitor’s way so nobody accidentally topples it over. Good, that way Krillin doesn’t get a rude awakening this late at night.

I sit on it and pull myself closer to my husband. There isn’t much I can really do besides just…look at him and let this situation sink in. Watch as his chest rises up and down in a slow rhythm, listen to his soft breathing…If you took away all the bandages and wounds, he’d look as though he was just sleeping after a long day of work. I guess that is technically true, but I wish my version of him was what was happening right now. Watching him sleep as I lay beside him in bed…No injuries, no bandages, no missing limbs, no nothing. Just me and him together under the sheets.

Hm…His hair is all messy too. Krillin had finally gotten it to the length he had back at the World Martial Arts Tournament. He usually has it combed and slicked back to fit inside his police helmet, but now it’s just all over the place. He’s going to get some crazy bedhead when he wakes up. I gently brush away the raven strands from his eyes…hehe, it’s still soft from the conditioner he used this morning. I feel a small smile growing on my face, I think it’s the first time in hours that I’ve had one.

I move my left hand to Krillin’s right, making sure not to accidentally bump off the wire that connected him to the heart monitor. I intertwine my fingers with his and give his hand a firm squeeze. It may have been a reflex but I swear I could feel Krillin squeeze back in response, even if it was only a twitch.

“Mph…” He stirred a bit, unconsciously moving himself up a bit before going limp again. How long have I been here again? I’ve lost count of the minutes, but it must’ve been at least close to an hour. I remember the nurse said that the anesthesia would wear off in about an hour and I know that Krillin’s going to be moved around that time as well.

I’ve made up my mind.

I’m going to stay here for the night. I’m going to stay here for Krillin until he wakes up and I’m going to stay by his side until morning. I don’t care if the staff tries to kick me out, I can take them! I’m going to help him through this, whether it be by finding the Dragon Balls or living with just one arm. As soon as he’s awake, we’re going to start working through this together. We'll find a way, we and all our friends always have.

A few minutes later, I see Krillin’s eyes twitch and slowly flutter open. It’s a dead expression at first, but soon I see life begin to show itself in those brown eyes of his. He slowly looks to me and likewise, I look at him…It’s a strange stare-down we have for a few moments.

“Eight…teen…?” He weakly whispers.

“Yeah, that’s me…” Oh god, I can barely keep my voice from shaking. Hell, I can barely keep myself from shaking. The little embarrassed smile Krillin gives me doesn’t help either, but it’s also the best thing that’s happened to me all day. It tells me he’s still here, that he’s still the same man I’ve adored for years.

“Sorry…I really messed up this time…didn’t I?” He tries to laugh, but he can only give what sounds like a weird cough.

I carefully give my silly husband a peck on the lips.

“I-It’s okay, Krillin. You’re here…that’s all I could ask for.”

And somehow, I know everything is going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> A Yayhoo is what my dad likes to call crazy people with bad driving skills.
> 
> \- - -
> 
> The fic I put as my inspiration doesn't have anything to do with amputation, but it's a story that means a lot to me. It's one of the first fanfictions I ever read and it's what got me into reading fanfiction all those years ago. I want to at least pay tribute to it in some way.


End file.
